If there was ever a mascot for NYC’s neo-soul scene, Rebecca Jordan is undoubtedly one of the top contenders. Rebecca is a young torch singer with an appreciation for the old, coupled with some serious plans for the future. From recording tracks on Alice Smith’s new record, to working with Citizen Cope, she’s got her hands all over our scene. In her new video ‘Eve,’ the singer flirts with a wide array of roles, from Ella Fitzgerald club entertainer to African princess, her net is cast about as wide as the ground the acoustic jam covers. Taken from her EP "Asphalt Heart," this is just one of many flavors to expect from Jordan’s latest release. Check out her new video below and see her live when she plays Dec 9 at Rockwood Music Hall. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Join Dolls on Fire with The Electric Lungs, The Sexy Accident, and Deco Auto this Saturday at Club 906. The group will be playing at 10:00 after The Electric Lungs.

 –-Vi Tran 

Vi Tran is a singer-songwriter, actor, and arts advocate who plays his own songs in Vi Tran Band and other people’s songs in Hot Caution.

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(Photo by Mat "Slimm" Adkins)

Five shadows emerge from a table in the corner of a dark room. The table is littered with empty liquor bottles, half-smoked cigarette packs, Zippos, playing cards, guitar picks. A Gretsch baritone crunches and rings out, followed by swaggering rhythms and vocals, dripping with sexual overtones. The sights and sounds you’re hearing are characteristically those of The Latenight Callers, Kansas City’s favorite noir band. We feature them in this week’s Artists on Trial, so pour yourself a glass of bourbon and read on.

The Deli: Gun to your head, 1 sentence to describe your music. What is it?

The Latenight Callers: "The house-band at David Lynch’s pool-party…and is that a Walther PPK?"

The Deli: Let’s talk about your upcoming shows or recordings. What can we expect? 

TLNC: We’ve got lots of shows in the next few months, but we’re REALLY excited about hitting the studio during the dark days of winter. We’re planning on 2013 being a lucky number for us.

The Deli: What does “supporting local music” mean to you?

TLNC: These days, it seems that the best definition would be to GO SEE bands performing live! It’s great that you can download anyone’s music, anywhere, anytime, online, but truly the only way to literally support the local scene is to be part of it by putting yourself in front of the bands, themselves!

The Deli: Who are your favorite “local” musicians right now?

TLNC: We’re quite fond of a pretty broad variety of music, including The Quivers, The Cave Girls, Steady States, Federation of Horsepower, Victor & Penny, The Silver Maggies, The Hillary Watts Riot…but honestly, there are just too many to mention!

The Deli: Who are your favorite not-so-local musicians right now?

TLNC: We’re in love with The Royalty (El Paso), which have an incredibly catchy 60s garage-soul-pop sound, and Overcasters (Denver), who have this huge and doomy Americana rock sound. Check them out when they come to town again!

The Deli: What is your ultimate fantasy concert bill to play on?

TLNC: Oh, the two bands listed in the prior question! The Latenight Callers, The Royalty, and Overcasters would be crazy awesome, and as different as those two bands are, TLNC is sort of a crazy halfway point between them!

The Deli: Would you rather spend the rest of your life on stage or in the recording studio?

TLNC: It’d be easy to do both, but the stage is really where we really have the most fun… plus, no one can see you all dressed up in the studio, right?

The Deli: A music-themed Mount Rushmore. What four faces are you putting up there and why?

TLNC: Tom Waits, Billie Holliday, Nick Cave, Patsy Cline… because you’d have to have big personalities up there that you’d never get tired of their influence.

The Deli: All right, give us the rundown. Where all on this big crazy web can you be found?

TLNC: thelatenightcallers.com

http://www.facebook.com/TheLatenightCallers

Pretty much anything anyone needs to know about us.

The Deli: Always go out on a high note. Any last words of wisdom for the Deli audience?

TLNC: Stick with brown liquor.

The Latenight Callers are:
Julie Berndsen – lead vocals
Ellen O’Hayer – guitar, vocals
Nick Combs – keyboards
Gavin Mac – bass
Krysztof Nemeth – baritone guitar

You’re in luck, because you can catch TLNC tonight with two of their favorite local bands, The Quivers and The Cave Girls. KC Rockabilly is presenting this great show at Aftershock (FB event page). The Quivers take the stage at 8:30, TLNC follows at 9:30, and The Cave Girls at 10:30. Then, on Saturday, December 1, TLNC will be at recordBar with Deco Auto, Now Now Sleepyhead, and In Back of A Black Car (FB event page).  

–-Zach Hodson

Zach Hodson is a monster. He once stole a grilled cheese sandwich from a 4-year-old girl at her birthday party. He will only juggle if you pay him. I hear he punched Slimer right in his fat, green face. He knows the secrets to free energy, but refuses to release them until "Saved by the Bell: Fortysomethings" begins production. He is also in Dolls on Fire and Drew Black & Dirty Electric, as well as contributing to various other Kansas City-based music, comedy, and art projects.

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Widowspeak – which seems to have become a duo – just announced the release of their second full length scheduled for early 2013. Preview track "Ballad of the Golden Hour" replicates their usual, indolently dreamy atmospheres, with a progressive build up that’s slightly noisier and faster than what we would normally expect from them. The press release promises "denser arrangements" and exploring of "new sonic territory" – but as long as the songs are as consistently good as the ones in the band’s previous release, pretty much anything will do, really…

One thing these three aren’t serious about has to be finding names for stuff, starting with the band itself, Low Fat Getting High, or their first EP, ‘Shake Weight’. And if the content of their records itself approaches political rather than nonsense, it’s almost hard to tell their concern from beneath the nuisance. For of the few things they ARE serious about, noisemaking’s a definite first on the list. Yet where the early efforts flew none too far off scuzzy standards, new single ‘Lacoste’ finds them stepping away from the old dirt road, working their way one phase after another into fast-shredding cacophony. Split with The Black Black, the 7” comes out November 19th, greeted by a show on the 20th at Legion Bar with Vulture Shit and Advaeta where you’ll be treated to some new material.

Bluegrass folk revivalists Joy Kills Sorrow celebrate stripped down acoustic melodies and rich, earthy vocals, while adding an original freshness to their sound. The Boston and Brooklyn-based five piece formed in 2005, finding their sound in the Boston area and soon releasing their self-titled debut. Their current line-up solidified in 2009: singer Emma Beaton’s mellow country noir voice is the absolute star here, but the banjo and mandolin set the overall tone with their rustic quality. The band’s most recent album, “This Unknown Science,” was released in 2011, showcasing a finely tuned melodic bluegrass with somewhat reminiscent of female-led Punch Brothers. Joy Kills Sorrow will be touring the Northeast this fall, including a December 5 appearance at The Rock Shop in NYC and a few show in New England – see here for the full schedule. – Devon Antonetti

If I start telling you about an exciting new artist who’s proposing to add a dose of spirituality to visually-based instrumental music experiments… you’ll promise not to run in the other direction, right? Good, just checking.

Through a series of unlikely collaborations, artist Maria Takeuchi has given New York something we least expected. An insertion of the mysterious and appreciation for spiritual distance in new EP “Doppelgänger.” The record feels like the soundtrack to an unreleased David Fincher film, complete with dense noise-scapes and percussive vocoding. As she’s prone to: Takeuchi creates music for “Doppelgänger” you can see as much as listen to.

So, please don’t be afraid. The music may exist in it’s own world, but it’s a place you’ll want to visit too. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

A not too new project from XXXChange and Devlin (of Devlin and Darko—Spank Rock’s tour DJs), NYC and Boston based electro-pop band Win Win has been gathering a good amount of buzz in 2012, after signing with Vice records. Their sound falls somewhere between MGMT’s catchy pop constructions and Brian Eno’s deadpan experimentation and delivery. Check out their new video of the single "After the Wait" here – also streaming below in mp3 format.

Just like their music, Glass Ghost always seem to be on the verge of percolating out to the mainstream. From a mountain of press commenting on their impressive debut ‘Idol Omen,’ to gracing the cover of the Deli, there’s no shortage of praise for the Brooklyn duo. Eliot Krimsky and Mike Johnson can’t seem to find an instrument that won’t make their music as lush and soulful as a spiritual, with the magic to cut like the diamond mentioned in their biggest song ‘Like a Diamond.’ And hey, if Sharon Van Etten is covering your songs … you really can’t go wrong. The band is playing with two of my favorite local acts (Strand of Oats, Yellow Ostrich) this Wednesday at Bowery Ballroom. See them there and buy tickets here. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Stream: Like A Diamond (via Youtube)

Blues traditionalist, country revivalist, Jon LaDeau is taking Brooklyn to the genres usually reserved for Austin, Chicago and New Orleans. This is a truly down home American style, presented with grit… irony-free. His latest record sticks to these styles with glee as LaDeau’s guitar work shreds like a latter-day Stevie Ray Vaughn. At times, his voice recalls the George Harrison from ‘All Things Must Pass,’ a rocker who still understands the roots of his sound. Tracks like ‘Lucille’ and ‘Grapple’ especially carry with them the railroad grooves of delta blues under jackhammer guitar licks. See him when he plays his ongoing residency at Way Station in Prospect Heights on November 30th. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Back for its third year, Tinderbox Music Festival — entirely composed of female musicians and female-fronted bands — showcased this past Sunday a diverse amount of genres with acts from all over the country playing on 3 separate stages. The event started at 1pm with folkier bands taking the stage in the morning, including a stand out performance by NYC  Jamie Bendell (pictured and streaming), whose beautifully raw and innocent voice blended perfectly with catchy acoustic guitar riffs and a grittier sound from the back-up electric guitarist. Other standouts of the day included: Hello Phones, the powerful and punky ohian group Jasper the Colossal, the endearing and talented Mal Blum backed by drummer and guitarist, and one of the last bands of the day, the wonderfully energetic Charlene Kaye and the Brilliant Eyes. The headliner, Coco Rosie, ended the night with an emotional and experimental set that had the audience entranced. For more information on the festival or the musicians involved, go here. – Chelsea Eriksen – Photo credit: Maxime Lemoine

Photo Source: Tokyoidaho

Tokyoidaho are gearing up for a weekend gig at The Comet Tavern on Saturday the 17th. Soft Hills and Kingdom of the Holy Sun are on the lineup too, with Boat headlining.

This trio’s (plus live member Projectorhead bringing the visual oomph) last release was the September full-length Tokyoidaho. Take vocals a little reminiscent of Trent Reznor, throw them in a capsule with haunting guitarwork, rolling drums, and pulsing synths, and one may begin to grip the band’s sonic protocol. But only barely.

Opener "Other Places, Other Places" navigates some seriously celestial terrain with its stargazing shoegaze. Warped sounds ebb and flow like a form of echo location as the beat stays steady with ghost-hits to spare.

"Oberheim Sunshine," contrary to its title, presents a darker vista than some of the tracks. The synth-work features more prominently. The singing is earnest and dramatic, revealing uncertainty about the days and nights to come. The song is neither sugar-sweet light or disturbingly morose, occupying a middleground content with curious exploration.

Their experimentation with shoegaze/pop/alternative rock spins routine categorizations through the blender. What plops out on the other end is not found in nature, certaintly. But neither does the music hail exclusively from the deep regions of space. Tokyoidaho’s ability to bridge melody and weird aural delights deserves notice.

Check them out live on the 17th of November at The Comet. Tickets cost $8 apiece and the doors are at 8:30pm. Listen to "Oberheim Sunshine" and visit their bandcamp to stream their self-titled record and pick up a physical copy.

– Cameron LaFlam